Hall of Fame Poll: Barry Bonds

We start this year’s polls off with Barry Bonds.

There isn't any doubt that Bonds used PEDs. Totally ignoring Joe Morgan’s letter to the voters (which is the healthiest thing the Hall could do), my feeling is that if I think a player would have made the Hall without PEDs, then I don’t care if he used. In Bond’s case, he was going to be Hall worthy even without the PEDs, in my opinion. He was the NL MVP in 1990, before when most of us think he started juicing. He was, to me, the best player in baseball before his head starting getting it’s own gravitational pull.

This is Barry's sixth time on the ballot. Last year he was on 53.8% of the writer's ballots. In our poll, last year 71% of us voted yes he should be in the Hall. Since 75% is the cut off.

You all know the numbers, he won the MVP award 7 times (and likely should have won it more), made 14 All-Star teams and has 8 Gold Gloves. Baseball Reference has him number 2 in WAR, among position players in baseball history, at 158.1. He only trails Babe Ruth. He's the all-time leader in home runs (762), walks (2558) and intentional walks (688).

And he used steroids. And he was (is) a jerk. Not that we don't have a lot of jerks in the Hall of Fame. If there was a jerk quotient (some way of quantify jerkness), let's face it, Ty Cobb and several others would have 10 times the number Bonds' number.

I have a hard time with writers being holy than thou over steroids when they ignored the problem, back in the day. And, let's face it, we all cheered when they were hitting home runs. I think Bonds would have Hall of Fame numbers even if he didn't use. Ignoring one of the top 2 or 3 players in baseball history seems a stupid thing for the Hall to do.

You can take a look at his numbers here.

Barry Bonds

Similar Players: Actual Bonds is basically a better Willie Mays. Bonds through 1999 doesn't have any particularly good comparables, but the closest four would be Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, and Joe DiMaggio and that basically says it all.